Accont12, Jorge's Dockable Container control

Anybody knows a good example of how to control AcadDockableContainer
(accont12.arx version by Jorge Lopez) from VBA (out of ACAD)? I did write
some OCX controls in VB showing and managing a dockable container in ACAD,
but I'd like to gain a control over it through VBA once it's loaded in
memory.

Any ideas?

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

 

An OCX is a complete unit of code. What would be the point in having VBA
manage the container as opposed to the OCX itself?

--
There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who
don't.

http://code.acadx.com
(Pull the pin to reply)

 

You can use the AcadDockableContainers object from
VBA to access and manage dockable containers, and
get pointers to the hosted controls (I routinely
use this from LISP to access control properties and
methods).

Specific examples require specifics on what exactly
you want to do.

 

In my case, I need to launch the dockable container via VBA using
SendCommand "DC"... and then run custom method from OCX named "RefreshMe".
This second part (launching desired Public Sub of OCX from within VBA) seems
a bit confusing to me. I guess I'll need to use Application.GetObject.....
somehow but there's no specific explanation how exactly.

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

 

You don't have to use the DC command to launch a
dockable container (probably won't work since your
VBA code isn't going to wait for the control to
be loaded).

You can do this, but you must have "accont.arx"
loaded first:

const szProgId = "AutoCAD.AcadDockableContainers"

Dim Containers As AcadDockableContainers
Set Containers = AcadApplication.GetInterfaceObject(szProgId)
Containers.Add("YourLib.YourControl")

That's essentially the same as using the DC command to
launch a dockable container.

Methods of the hosted OCX can be called from VBA like so:

Dim DockClient As AcadDockableContainer3
Set DockClient = Containers("YourLib.YourControl")
Dim ContainedControl as Object
Set ContainedControl = DockClient.Control
ContainedControl.RefreshMe ....

 

Thanks a lot, Tony, this bothers me ever since Accont.arx showed up. This
piece of code is what is really missing in Jorge's accompanying
documentation, it would have probably saved me hundreds of hours "rewriting"
functions from VBA to VB. This is also an explanation to Frenk who asked why
bothering with VBA as OCX should deal with ACAD for itself - well, there are
obvious reasons in my specific case:

a) Rewriting code from ready-made VBA functions to VB (OCX), lots of
redundant stuff...
b) I need to show a list of (specific) blocks in my DockableContainer, to
reflect the current state from the ACAD. It works for the first time I
launch the control, but if user switches the container off and inserts new
block, and then switches container again on - it will not refresh to reflect
the current state of elements within ACAD (container's OnShow event launches
only the first time it's loaded into memory). Maybe I'm missing something...

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

 

Tony,

The example you've sent has a bug in the last line:

Const szProgId = "AutoCAD.AcadDockableContainers"
Dim Containers As AcadDockableContainers
Set Containers = AcadApplication.GetInterfaceObject(szProgId) <---- bug
reported


VBA reports "Problem in loading application", which I suspect is the
"AutoCAD" set in szProgId constant. I have accont.arx (v1.2) loaded and
accont.tlb referenced within VBA, all of that running under Autodesk Map 5.
Do you have any idea what an app name should be? I also tried with
"AC_CONT.AcadDockableContainers" and "ACCONT.AcadDockableContainers" but
without success.

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

 

As one who contributed significant amounts of my own
time to the Dockable Container, what really bugs the
h*ll outta me, are people that look a gift horse in
the mouth.

 

In my post, I clearly stated that ACCONT.ARX
must be loaded first.

 

I loaded the ARX first, but not from the same place where TLB was stored (I
had two copies of accont.arx and accompanying TLBs). I removed one of them
and re-referenced the type library within VBA project. Now it works
perfectly and many thanks for that.

I have two additional questions on accont.arx (feel free to ignore them, you
helped enough already):

a) How to use dockContainer events in VB, like On_Float? The XXX are
pointing to the control name I'm missing:
Private Sub XXX_OnFloat()
.....
End Sub

Should it point to name of control, UserControl itself or dockContainer?

b) When SetPreferredDockingPosition is different that acFloating (when
docked), then I'm unable to assign the initial width of dockContainer (it's
much wider than needed). As there's no way to programmatically change the
width of dockControl (Width and Height properties are read-only), I tried to
SetPreferredDockingPosition to Float with predefined Rectangle (rect)
coordinates, and then to immediatelly dock it. It didn't work either.

Regards,
Maksim Sestic